Some people understood the distinction. Others vehemently disagreed.

The objections tended to fall into two camps.

First, congress has no authority to infringe on 2A rights so there is nothing to debate. The vote should never have happened. That it did is, in and of itself, a 2A infringement.

Second, letting this camel’s nose under the tent amounts to passing the bill because GOP Senators are RINO squishes. It doesn’t matter that the vote was procedural. It’s the first step in the process and if you voted for it you may as well have voted for the final bill.

But, as in wartime – where you don’t fight with the army you want, but with the army you have – so it is here. We cannot insist on fighting the fights we want, we must fight the fights we have. We correctly believe Congress has no authority to infringe on our rights. But 2A haters don’t care.

And they are talking, long and loud.

We can engage them or not. We can defend our rights on any field of battle or not. They are bringing the fight to us. Why would we not fight back?

Some seem to believe the debate itself is an actual infringement on 2A rights. I understand the emotion but the notion is silly. To infringe on a right, Congress must pass a law which does so. Talking about passing a law which does so isn’t an infringement. We’re the ones who believe that words mean things, remember?

Currently, the loudest voices are calling for infringement, if not outright repeal. In the face of that, how is it many on our side back ignoring the conversation and claim doing so is defending our 2A rights?

Really? How is trying to avoid an unavoidable fight a defense? If we don’t engage on the issue, how can we be said to defend anything? We might get away with that if we held the majority. But we don’t. Why, then, beat up on Lamar Alexander who noted last night that,

One of the reasons Republicans don’t have a governing majority is that we often pick the wrong fights. Voting to prevent a debate on gun rights is an argument Republicans will lose with the American people. Defending Second Amendment rights is an argument Republicans will win with the American people.

Of course, none of this matters if GOP Senators are RINO squishes. But that charge can’t be used against the Senators in this debate. Because their nature is already fixed.

If they really are RINO squishes, all is already lost. They voted for cloture the first time, they will do so the second time and will vote for the final bill. That’s what RINO squishes do, after all. It’s over.

But what if they aren’t?

What if they are, at least in the area of 2A issues, quite principled or willing to pretend to be such? At that point, their assertion that they support the 2A and will fight for it carries some weight and we should be supporting them and helping them, not calling them names and calling their character into question.

The bottom line is that 2A rights are under attack as never before by people who truly hate the idea of an armed citizenry. These enemies of the Constitution will stop at nothing to get what they want.

We can correctly observe such feelings are unconstitutional but we cannot deny they feel that way – and are willing to put actions – and words – to their feelings.

The remaining question is what we intend to do to combat them.

We can insist this is a debate we should not have and disengage. Or we can run to the sound of gunfire (pun intended), loaded for bear and bring every weapon we have to bear on the arguments of the enemy in a strong defense of our 2A rights.

Look for me alongside you in that fight. And don’t be too surprised if you see a GOP Senator or two – perhaps as many as 16 – on the firing line as well.

Ken Marrero

The Blue Collar Muse

Grassroots reaction was both swift and pointed.

Grassfire.com wrote, “Sen. Harry Reid’s gun-control legislation has cleared the first hurdle … bringing the creation of a national gun registry and the outright confiscation of your firearms closer to reality.”

The TN Campaign for Liberty wrote, “After having dinner with President Obama last night, Senator Lamar Alexander then voted this morning to advance Obama’s gun control scheme.”

Listening to the critiques one might assume these Senators are, even now, fueling up the black choppers and SUVs to dispatch them for quiet conversations with Americans about their guns.

But what did they do, exactly?

They did not vote for a bill that infringed on the 2nd Amendment Rights of Americans. They voted to begin debate on a bill that would infringe on the 2nd Amendment Rights of Americans. Support for having the debate is not the same as supporting the bill.

For example, Grassfire.com notes both the NRA and the ACLU believe the Toomey-Manchin bill is unconstitutional. This is a powerful fact which deserves attention. There are voices respected by both sides of the political divide opposing the bill.

However, a letter issued by Chris Cox of the NRA stating they would negatively “score” cloture votes on the issue was misread by many. The vote in question is not today’s vote but an upcoming cloture vote needed to move the bill to an actual vote. Even the Lefties at Slate got that one wrong. Bottom line is that while the NRA is opposed to the bill, they are not beating up Senators who voted to debate it.

And neither am I.

There are any number of folks eager to have this debate; eager to have Democrats and liberal Republicans explain how what they are doing passes constitutional muster. They want amendments and recorded votes for later use against 2nd Amendment haters and gun detractors. Some of those folks voted for cloture yesterday to make that reality possible. That does not mean they will vote for a necessary second cloture vote to close debate and move to voting for passage or defeat on the actual bill.

In fact, some Senators voted for cloture to open debate while remaining committed to opposing Toomey-Manchin and the ongoing assault on the 2nd Amendment.

Oklahoma’s Tob Coburn is one.

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is another. He said, “I’ll examine each amendment to determine whether it strengthens or infringes upon our Second Amendment rights … The Toomey-Manchin proposal to expand background checks in my opinion doesn’t meet that test and I will vote against it.”

So is Tennessee’s Bob Corker who said, “I don’t understand why any senator wouldn’t want to debate these issues, but in the end, I will not support any legislation that violates our Second Amendment rights.”

These Senators voted to begin debate. They were not signalling their support for the measure being debated. They certainly don’t seem to be “advanc[ing] Obama’s gun control scheme.”

It may be that when it comes time to vote on the actual bill that one or more of them will vote for a bad piece of legislation. If they do, I will be the first to call them out on it. But this is not that vote. Nor can it be used to predict a future vote.

For that, we should watch the debate process, note the amendments offered, the questions asked, the follow-ups and the positions staked out. Eventually we will need to watch a cloture vote – the one to close debate. If that one passes, no sure thing as many do not, the actual vote on the measure will be the defining one.

To now excoriate Senators for voting to do what the Senate is supposed to do – consider and debate – seems also to be bad behavior. I cannot and will not condone it or participate.

That having been said, I’m sure there are any number of my friends who will disagree with me. I look forward to your thoughts in the comment section.

Ken Marrero

The Blue Collar Muse

CONGRESS: THIS JOB SUCKS – Our own Jonathan Allen writes that for many members of Congress, “the thrill is gone.” “They don’t make national policy anymore. They can’t earmark money for communities back home. The public hates them. And perks little and big, from private jet travel to a little free nosh now and then, have been locked down by ethics rules. As they head for the exits this year, many leaving Congress say the prestigious job of being a congressman sucks now, and that’s why lawmakers young and old are trading in their member pins for a new life in the private sector. …

–“For longer-term veterans, the stature of the office has diminished and the burdens have grown. Pay has been frozen for three years — not that the average American will shed a tear over the static $174,000 salary. Most lawmakers have to live in two cities, and when they don’t — like Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who has lived in Virginia for the past 35 years — it becomes the central issue of their campaigns. Fundraising is a much bigger hassle these days, as it costs more and more to run an effective race against the new soft money pouring into congressional contests. … The frustration has been building for some time, and the days of past-their-prime legislators bidding fond farewells to the institution seem anachronistic.”http://politi.co/yZNFHX

–And on a related note, POLITICO’s Manu Raju finds that perhaps big Capitol Hill endorsements just aren’t what they used to be: “Mitt Romney is quick to point to his laundry list of powerful supporters on Capitol Hill who see him as the best candidate to take on President Barack Obama this fall. But in many cases, those endorsements have fallen flat. Romney has been trounced in several states where he has received key congressional endorsements, the latest sign of the waning influence of the Washington establishment on GOP primary voters. On Super Tuesday, Romney had the support of Sens. Tom Coburn, the conservative stalwart from Oklahoma, John Hoeven, a popular former governor from North Dakota, and Lamar Alexander, a longtime figure in Tennessee politics. He lost all three states handsomely to Rick Santorum. That came weeks after Romney lost big in Missouri, a state that in 2010 elected Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, who is the former Massachusetts governor’s chief liaison on Capitol Hill.” http://politi.co/xI23XO

Sen. Jim DeMint & Sen. Lindsey Graham

June 5, 2011

The Post & Courier

In President Obama’s State of the Union address he said, “We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business.”

We agree.

Global competition for business and jobs is more important than ever as our country struggles to recover from the lingering recession and cope with the massive debt burden imposed on the economy by increased government spending.

Unfortunately, recent actions by Obama’s handpicked political appointees at the National Labor Relations Board are making it more difficult for America to win the future. The NLRB, at the behest of Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon, has taken unprecedented legal action against The Boeing Company to prevent it from expanding productions into South Carolina, a state that assures workers the freedom not to join a union as a condition of employment.

This is a malicious attack on millions of workers in South Carolina and other right-to-work states, as well as a government-led act of intimidation against American companies that should have the freedom to build plants in the location of their own choosing.

The NLRB action is also vexing when one considers that President Obama’s own White House Chief of Staff, William Daley, was on the Boeing Company Board of Directors when the Board approved the decision to open the second assembly line in South Carolina. Or the fact that the CEO and President of The Boeing Company, Jim McNerney, also serves as the Chair of President Obama’s Export Council , which operates as an advisory committee on international trade.

If the NLRB prevails in this unprecedented action, it will only encourage companies to make their investments in foreign nations, moving jobs and economic growth overseas. America will not win the future if Washington penalizes workers in states with winning economic strategies.

The facts are clear — by every economic measure right-to-work states are outperforming forced-unionism states.

Statistics show businesses prefer to operate in right-to-work states. Right-to-work states experienced a 46 percent higher increase in private sector businesses established from 1993-2009. In the 22 right-to-work states, 497,041 new businesses were added, while only 339,834 new businesses were established in the other 28 forced-unionism states. This is especially notable because right-to-work states only account for 40.3 percent of the total U.S. population, but nearly 60 percent of all the new private sector businesses are located in those states.

The logic is simple — more businesses means more jobs. From 1993-2009 private sector employment increased 37.9 percent in right-to-work states, compared to only 19.6 percent in forced-unionism states. The difference is 1.3 million in new private sector job creation.

All of the new economic opportunity has led to increased wages for workers living in right-to-work states. From 1993-2010 real per capita personal income grew 39.5 percent in right-to-work states compared to 35.7 percent in forced-unionism sates.

Bottom line, right-to-work states have faster job growth, faster income growth, and faster business growth than forced-unionism states.

This winning strategy should be duplicated nationwide. That’s why we have introduced a bill, along with Sen. Lamar Alexander, to preserve the federal law’s existing protections for state right-to-work laws. American companies, like Boeing, must have the freedom to create and expand businesses where they have the best chance to succeed.

Our bill prevents Obama’s political appointees from trying to stamp out the healthy interstate competition that makes America the best place in the world to do business.

Because if they keep it up, new jobs are much more likely to be created in China instead of places like South Carolina.

Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both Republicans, are South Carolina’s U.S. senators.

“I’m Lamar Alexander, United States Senator from Tennessee. I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes about making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs here in America. We can start by helping companies make in the United States what they sell in the United States, but unfortunately recent actions by the Administration are making that hard to accomplish.

“Last month the National Labor Relations Board moved to stop America’s largest exporter, the Boeing Company, from building airplanes at a non-union plant in South Carolina, suggesting that a unionized American company can’t expand its operations into one of the 22 states with right-to-work laws, which protect a worker’s right to join or not to join a union. But instead of making a speech, let me tell you a story.

“The story is about a White House state dinner in February 1979, when I was governor of Tennessee. President Carter said to us, ‘Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here.’

“So, off I flew to Tokyo to meet with Nissan executives who were deciding where to put their first U.S. manufacturing plant. I carried with me a photograph taken from a satellite showing the country at night with all of its lights on.

“‘Where is Tennessee?’ the Nissan executives ask. ‘Right in the middle of the lights,’ I answered, pointing out that locating a plant in the population center reduces the cost of transporting cars to customers. That population center had migrated from the Midwest, where most U.S. auto plants were then, south to places like Kentucky and Tennessee.

“Then the Japanese examined a second consideration: Tennessee has a right-to-work law and Kentucky does not. This meant that in Kentucky workers would have to join the United Auto Workers union. Workers in Tennessee had a choice. Well, in 1980 Nissan chose Tennessee, a state with almost no auto jobs. Today auto assembly plants and suppliers provide one-third of Tennessee’s manufacturing jobs. Tennessee is the home for production of the Leaf, Nissan’s all-electric vehicle, and the batteries that power it. And recently Nissan announced that 85% of the cars and trucks it sells in the United States will be made in the United States — making it one of the largest ‘American’ auto companies.

“So now the NLRB and unions want to make it illegal for a company that has experienced repeated strikes to move production to a state with a right-to-work law. What would this mean for the future of American auto jobs? Well, jobs would flee overseas as manufacturers look for a competitive environment in which to make and sell their products around the world.

“It’s happened before. David Halberstam’s 1986 book, ‘The Reckoning’ tells a story about the decline of the domestic auto industry. Halberstam quotes the President of American Motors, who criticized the ‘shared monopoly’ consisting of the Big Three Detroit auto manufacturers in the UAW. ‘There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success,’ he warned. Detroit ignored upstarts like Nissan who in the 1960’s began selling funny little cars to American consumers. We all know what happened to employment in the Big Three companies.

“Even when Detroit sought greener pastures in a right-to-work state, its ‘partnership’ with United Auto Workers couldn’t compete. In 1985, General Motors located its $5 billion Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee; just 40 miles from Nissan, hoping that side-by-side competition would help the Americans beat the Japanese. After 25 years, non-union Nissan operated the most efficient auto plant in North America. The Saturn/UAW partnership never made a profit. GM closed Saturn last year.

“Nissan’s success is one reason why Volkswagen last week opened its North American manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, and why Honda, and Toyota, BMW, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and thousands of suppliers have chosen southeastern right-to-work states for their plants. According to the chief of the Boeing company: ‘An unintended consequence of the Boeing complaint is that forward thinking CEOs also would be reluctant to place new plants in unionized states — lest they be forever restricted from placing future plants across the country.’

“Boeing is America’s largest exporter, but we want them to export airplanes, not jobs.

“Our goal should be to make it easier and cheaper to create private-sector jobs in this country. Giving workers the right to join or not to join a union helps to create a competitive environment in which more manufacturers like Nissan and Boeing can make here what they sell here.

“I’m Lamar Alexander, thanks for listening.”